Consulting Journal: Methods - Simple form design

Methods: Simple form design

by David Blakey

Helping clients to design sensible forms can be a quick way of proving your skills as consultant.

[Monday 9 May 2005]

I have been looking at some forms that the entrants in a competition were asked to complete. The organizer asked for each entrant's full name, age, date of birth, telephone number, mobile number, and so on.

Someone in the organizer's office entered the details from each form into a spreadsheet. This is not unusual. Having people filling in forms and then entering their details into a computer is a routine task. Perhaps it is so routine that many organizations do not ask consultants to comment on the process. If we were asked, these are some of the questions we should ask.

Tools

First, is a spreadsheet the right tool? Many people can set up a simple database and a simple data entry form for it. Many desktop users who have a spreadsheet application also have a database application. Someone using Microsoft Office, for example, is likely to have Excel and Access.

There is a single good reason for questioning if a spreadsheet is the right tool. It may be that the information will simply be recorded and then displayed or printed in the format in which it was collected. If so, then a spreadsheet is probably as good a tool as any. It is likely, however, that the displays and reports will not be so simple. Although it may be possible to build complex macros for some spreadsheet applications, it is probably preferable to build code to manipulate the data in a database.

There is possibly also a common phenomenon at work here, too. At the time that the information is being collected, nobody may have given much consideration to how it can be manipulated. It is often only after the information has been collected that people will begin to think of ways in which they can use it.

Here is an example. Early in the process, people may have identified the need to have totals of entrants by age. Later, when information about several hundred entrants has been collected, someone might wonder whether the mean age of entrants varies by location: do entrants from all cities show the same age profile, or do some cities produce significantly younger or older entrants?

I believe that most people who have developed simple server scripts to produce reports from databases will confirm how much more simple these tasks are using a database rather than a spreadsheet. So my advice is: do get the client to think ahead and make sure that they are not restricting their ability to display and report information through their choice of tool.

Organization

My second question is: is the information organized well?

In the case that I looked at, the entry form asked for the applicant's full name, and the spreadsheet has columns for first name and last name. This is fine in most Western countries if my name is David Blakey. But what about Daoud al Blahkih? Or Bai Tu Wei? If we assume that the first name is Arabic, then my first name is Daoud and my last name - the name that tells you to which family or tribe I belong - is Blahkih. If we assume that the name Bai Tu Wei is Chinese, then my family name is Bai and my given names are Tu Wei. So my 'first name' does not appear first, and my 'last name' does not appear last. Let's remove all clues about origin from my name. Let us say that my name is Bing Bong Bang. Is this a name like David John Blakey, where the first name is Bing and the last name is Bang? Or is it Chinese, and the family name is Bing and the given names are Bong Bang?

It is not enough to put spaces for first name and last name on the form and then transcribe them.

In this instance, the competition organizer wanted to send letters to the entrants. For the envelope and the header of the letter, each entrant's name is needed. This can be David Blakey rather than my full name of David John Blakey. For the salutation of the letter, Dear David, my given name is needed. If this is known when the form is designed, then everything is much more simple for the form designer, for the entrants and for the people transcribing the forms. Given that many Chinese and Japanese use an Anglicized version of their name on English forms, a well-designed form can clear away most confusion over names. Someone whose name is Bai Tu Wei can be called David, if they want.

Relevance

My final question is: is all the information that is stored relevant?

In this example, the entrants were asked for their date of birth and their age. There is a reason for this. At the time that someone entered the competition, the organizers needed to know immediately whether the entrant was under the age limit for the competition, which was 15, or under the age at which they could enter without a parent's approval, which was 18. Having the entrant's age clearly shown on the entry form allowed the organizers to answer these questions instantly.

The date of birth is absolute and an entrant's age is relative. The better one to capture for storage is therefore the date of birth. The form needs both the entrant's age and their date of birth. The information held about the entrant needs only their date of birth. Just because an entrant's age is on the form does not mean that it is information that should be stored. As we have seen, there may be other reasons for capturing that information.

My advice

My advice, if a client is designing entry forms or questionnaires is to persuade the client:

to think of possible future uses of the information, and to choose a tool for recording that information that will enable those future reports;
to check that the format and organization of the information collected are logical and universal, so that they cross differences in culture, language, ability and belief; and
to make sure that the form contains all the information needed for cross-checking and verifying, which may involve some redundancy, and that the storage of information from the form is of non-redundant data.

The result

Your clients may not think that having a consultant help them to design forms and questionnaires is the best use of the consultant's time and of their money. You will not, of course, have to put much time into advising your clients about their forms. You need not even charge them for your time. But you will give a good impression, in three ways. First, you will show attention to detail. Second, you will show that you think ahead. Third, you will use a logical and considered approach. These are all essential qualities in consultants, and it is good to be able to demonstrate them all in such a simple exercise as designing a form.

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